Dry carpet cleaning compositions have been known for many years. For example, Studer et al. U.S. Pat. No. 2,165,586 discloses a carpet cleaning composition based on buckwheat flour which is spread over the carpet, worked into the nap, and then removed by use of a vacuum cleaner. Recently, there have been several products available for cleaning and freshening carpets which appear to be based on sodium sulfate and sodium bicarbonate. However, these products exhibit poor flow properties, resulting in difficulty in distributing the composition over the surface of the carpet and removing the composition from the carpet by use of a vacuum cleaner. The compositions provided by the present invention overcome these disadvantages and provide improved cleaning and freshening of household carpets and environs.